Convicted rapist: Max Factor heir Andrew Luster was sentenced to 50 years in jail yesterday after his 124-year prison term was thrown out

Andrew Luster, an heir to the Max Factor fortune who was convicted of drugging and raping three women, was resentenced Tuesday to a reduced 50-year term by a judge who earlier threw out an original sentence of 124 years.

After the hearing yesterday,
49-year-old Luster, who has been in prison for a decade, cried in the
courtroom and said he was 'incredibly grateful' for Ventura County Superior Court Judge Kathryne Ann Stoltz' resentencing.

'I did some really stupid things without thinking,' said Luster. 'It's caused so much damage to so many people. There is more to me than this salacious and lurid story.'

Attorneys for Luster had said they would ask the judge to give him a sentence
of 25 years or less.

Under the new sentence, he will be eligible for parole in 15 years, prosecutors said.

Luster's lawyers Jay Leiderman and J.
David Nick said in court documents filed last month that Luster is not a
sexual predator and has had a 'stellar performance' in prison, the
Ventura County Star reported.

Prosecutors argued in a sentencing
memorandum filed last week that Luster's sentence was appropriate, but
the original court's reasoning needed to be explained.

'The original sentence was not
erroneous – only the record needed to be corrected,' Deputy District
Attorney Michelle Contois wrote.

It was not clear whether Stoltz would hand down the new sentence at Monday's hearing or sometime afterward.

Last month the judge refused a
request to throw out Luster's conviction, but granted him a resentencing
hearing, writing in her ruling that the court 'failed to state specific
reasons for imposing full consecutive sentences' as the law requires.

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Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics giant Max Factor, was arrested in 2000 and
charged with giving three women the drug GHB and raping them at his
beachfront home while they were unconscious.

He was convicted in 2003 in absentia
of 86 counts including rape of an intoxicated person, rape of an
unconscious person and sexual battery. He fled to Mexico during the
trial.

He was captured the same year in Mexico by
reality TV bounty hunter Duane 'Dog' Chapman in the Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta.

New hearing: Luster, left, is led out of the U.S. Customs building at LAX by FBI agents a day after being captured by Dog the Bounty Hunter in Mexico in June 2003

Last month Chapman revealed that he got a vital tip-off about the fugitive's hiding place from Luster's own attorney, the late Richard Sherman.

The
make-up heir ultimately sought a new sentencing hearing, and Stoltz ruled last month that the
judge who sent him to prison for 124 years 'failed to state specific
reasons for imposing full consecutive sentences' rather than having them
run concurrently.

'The
previously imposed sentence is vacated and a new sentencing hearing
will be held,' Stoltz wrote in her 28-page opinion that also denied him a
new trial. The judge set an April 4 sentencing hearing for Luster.

Attorneys
for the Max Factor heir had argued he deserved one, in part because his
original attorneys presented weak defenses at trial and that one
lawyer, Richard Sherman, gave him ill-conceived advice to flee to
Mexico.

Bounty hunter and TV star, Chapman told Radar Online that Sherman gave him very useful clues as to Luster's location.

Reality TV star: Dog the Bounty Hunter, pictured, caught Luster while he was on the run in 2003. Last month, he revealed that he was tipped off about Luster's location by the fugitives own attorney

As Radar Online reports, Sherman passed away in April 2011. The lawyer had always refuted the idea that he had given away his client's hiding place.

But according to 'Dog' the attorney did give him the information, in a very subtle way.

'Sherman became very nice to me,' Chapman explained to Radar. 'We used to tease each other. And at one point he said to me, "I’m going to tell you something Dog, so don’t be so dumb."

And then he said, "The guy (Luster) speaks Spanish. Do you get it?"'

The bounty hunter immediately understood. 'I had leads that pointed to Thailand and Mexico,' he said. 'Right then I dropped all my leads on Thailand and focused on Mexico.'

Chapman captured Luster in June 2003 and was briefly jailed himself as bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico.

Judge Kathryne Stoltz ruled last month that the judge who sent Luster to prison for 124 years 'failed to state specific reasons for imposing full consecutive sentences' rather than having them run concurrently

On Monday, Stoltz wrote that Luster's attorneys did not fail him at trial, and she rejected his current lawyers' arguments that Luster was manipulated into fleeing.

'Although several witnesses did describe Luster as 'childlike,' it appears that this was primarily because he did not have to work at a regular job due to the fact that he had a trust fund, and he lived the life of a carefree 'beach bum,' Stoltz wrote.

She added that Luster, who spent much of his time surfing, described himself as being involved in real estate and stock trading, and that he did not appear to have a low IQ.

Luster was found guilty of giving three women the date rape drug GHB and raping them while they were unconscious or intoxicated. Video tape Luster took of his sexual acts with the women was presented against him at trial.